By her leave
by River in Egypt
Summary: On the day of the Final Battle, Draco Malfoy contemplates that he owes Hermione Granger. And why.


_A/N: A spur of the moment Saturday morning though after reading The Book Thief's "Hard to Bear". It reflects what I always thought connects Draco Malfoy with Hermione Granger, even if they don't end up as a couple and continue their life as planned out in Rowling's Epilogue. He would have to be grateful, even if he was too stuck in his life to openly admit it._

_I have this sitting around on my computer, so I might as well put it out there._

_It's a little dark, but also hopeful. Enjoy_

By her leave

'No, Crabbe, no, you can't.'

I found my thoughts tumbling in my tired brain when I watched what used to be one of my best friends aim his wand in her direction.

Well, in Potter's direction, really, but she stood right next to him. And if I didn't want anything to happen to her, then by extension, I had to protect Potter as well. Because she was tied in with him.

She always was. From the very first day we met on the train to Hogwarts, she was meant to be on his side. Her self-righteousness, her smartness, her soft heart under her bossy shell, she was always meant to be on the "good" side. Not to mention her parentage.

Other than me.

Her parentage. This tiny detail in a wizard's life made all the difference. Not his skill, his ability, his training, his upbringing, well, maybe that too.

But who your parents were was the most important thing to decide where you are to go in life?

I couldn't belief this if my life depended on it. Which it very likely would at one point.

And that made it all the harder. I would have to _pretend_ now that I believed this crap.

Before my thoughts came to a conclusion, I found myself jumping on Crabbe's arm instinctively. Already disarmed, my mother's wand lost in the rubbish that's littering this room, I had no other means but very human ones. Stripped down from my magic I am but a man.

And I didn't want her harmed. I didn't want her dead.

I know she felt nothing but disgust for me, as it should be, because she was nothing I ever wanted in a girl, either; compliance and yieldingness, controllability and obedience; softness and pliancy, unfettered admiration for her man, and respect.

None of which she could ever manage. Which made me think if perhaps one wishes for the things exactly wrong for oneself.

When my aunt tortured her in my home, I couldn't avoid being impressed by her obstinacy and pertinacity in the face of adversity. Yes, she screamed and she bawled and cried but how can you blame her, how can you blame anybody under such duress.

Yet, here she was. Standing up after mere weeks since being tortured down to the very soul level. Because I knew what my aunt could do. Oh yes, I knew. She crushed you to the point of doubting yourself. It's not the pain alone, although, of course, it's excruciating.

No, my aunt had the talent of applying the pain where it hurt the most: your family, the people you really love unconditionally. She made you feel abandoned and so you stood truly alone against the pain she put on you, with no resources and no back-up, just you and your body and your mind. Loving parents, I hear, have the longest duration under such circumstances but even they give up eventually under the wildest imaginations of painful events strangling their minds.

And a body is weak. The mind is supposed to be the strongest organ in your body. And if there is anybody with a stronger mind that Hermione Granger's I have yet to find him or her.

It takes an exceptionally strong mind to survive my aunt's torture. And Hermione Granger did it.

Not only survived. She came out stronger in the end and I can't help it but feel impressed. And a certain admiration for her steadfastness.

The very thing we Slytherins abhor. Steadfastness is for people who are too stupid to see opportunities when they offer themselves. A good Slytherin takes good if it comes his way. We _can_ sacrifice but only if we see that the price we pay would be higher than our gain.

So, why was I openly defying Voldemort's minions now in this moment when they were about to attack and overwhelm Harry Potter and his faithful sidekicks? A deed if uncovered could very well cost me my life and my parents' to boot?

Because I'd die either way. Perhaps not literally. I might survive Voldemort's reign in a way. I might even get back in his good graces if I played my role well, which nobody can deny I used to be able to do, quite.

But I would die a slow painful death on the inside if I did that.

I couldn't go back. I had decided at one point that I couldn't, that I wouldn't do this.

The moment I stood in front of them in our Drawing room and I had to make the decision whether to identify them to my parents and my overeager aunt, I knew that if I extinguished this light there would be darkness everywhere with no escape.

And despite my pale skin I do value the sun coming up every morning.

And I knew it wouldn't make any difference anymore if we killed the saviour ahead of time. When Voldemort got the upper hand in this battle of power, it wouldn't matter anymore if the sun actually came up again. Because there would be darkness and bleakness everywhere. Similar to the bleakness my aunt inflicts on you with her Cruciatus. And I couldn't fathom to endure that for the rest of your life. Well, no, I could fathom and I decided if there was anything I could do, I would prevent it.

I didn't feel I could do much. Being my father's son, growing up with material wealth as far as the eye could see I still didn't have much trust in my own judgment because my father said so. I followed a narrow prescribed path set by my parents. I was punished severely whenever I tried to think or act for myself. There was no option of departing from the set goal, to become a follower of Voldemort's paradigm, independent of its moral value.

Because we are all clear on the fact that he didn't value LIFE very much, aren't we?

Yes, I thought so.

And we felt always in the right. I particularly felt that way. My parents always said so. I was always right and our privileged position in life proved me right at every turn. The fact that I could direct people and they actually listened to what wisdom I sprouted from my immature mouth, proved to me that I was in the right. Until it all felt wrong.

Living with Voldemort in my house for the better part of a year I felt how life would be like with him in power; it would be a constant scrambling for a better position with other maggots, followers, nobody safe from his uncontrollable wrath, no essential life-preserving rule left untouched, nothing counting but his predictable greed, and pain and bleakness and despair and slow dying in abundance.

I believe I owe it to her and her endurance in the snake's pit that I understood in that moment that life always wins. As it should. Life and its connection to the life giving source. Life will always come out, even in the bleakest of moments.

And with it its sidekicks hope and beauty. As her will to live and survive showed me in that moment. It was beautiful to see her keep her mind straight under my aunt's torture.

I decided in that moment that it was futile to fight against life and that I didn't WANT to.

I didn't want to be punished for the rest of my days on earth and perhaps after (who knew) that I had stood in the way of the life force. I would rather accept (inhumane) human punishment than stand in the divine way of life. In that direction lay madness, I understood.

After we had escaped from the fiendfyre burning the magical Room of Requirements to cinders - I felt like I lost a friend. I had spent a LOT of time in there - I continued to do my best to see that Granger and Potter (and grudgingly I had to include the weasel in the trio) made their way to preserve our light.

And when Potter had annihilated the Dark One by turning Voldemort's presumptuousness against the monster - because he was not human, I was sure of that - and I sat with my feeble family in the Great Hall to stomach the shock and joy and grieve that swept over the wizarding world, I felt her eyes on me.

Sitting between my mother and father, both clinging to me as if I was their lifeline - which in a way I was. I was the only one who had understood the connection to life ahead of time. My mother knew that. She chose at the last possible moment. My father was the only one lost. In that moment, she walked past our table and for a second our eyes met.

My clear grey on her warm brown eyes I saw no longer disgust. I saw relief that her light had won and the willingness to spread it to everybody who wanted it. And I wanted.

I wanted to soak up every ounce of life that I could get.

Oh, I would follow my parents' advice and if everything went according to plan I would marry another pureblood girl to preserve our clean family line. It didn't have to be without love. It was possible that I found a girl I would care deeply for and we would have children we cared equally deeply for and life would be good and comfortable with our riches and we would slowly rebuilt the respect our family once held by doing good things and donating to worthy causes, spreading our wealth, so to say.

But I wanted to receive her leave that I could; that I was allowed to receive the good of life, despite my participation in her misery and my late repentance for choosing the wrong side.

Going separate ways, I would never forget that I owed her. Not in form of a life depth, I owed that too, but in that I was tied to her by the way I had matured to a man on a bleak day full of torture in Malfoy Manor. And whatever I would become in life was due to her misery transforming me.

And she knew it. I saw it in her eyes when she passed me on the day of the Final battle. I saw forgiveness for not coming to her help when she was tortured, and gratefulness that I had helped as much as I could, and the recognition of two people who had come out changed and the relief that I had made it out alive as well.

Another life saved. I saw the expectation to savour this life I had and was going to lead for the better, and the challenge to take my newly acquired maturity to higher levels.

Everything I became henceforth was by her leave on that day.

And I'd never been more grateful.


End file.
